Update on the Cormorants.

A quick update on the "Cormorant Invasion". As we peer through the thick sheets of rain drifting across The Lake we can see a new Cormorant landing every minute or so. With groups of them spread out all over The Lake I now estimate their numbers at 50 to 100. They are a sight indeed as flotilla's of them cover every corner of The Lake. It is fascinating to see them as they cruise by, seemingly excited as they dive and pop up then dive again. I don't know if they are catching anything or the huge number of dives they are making are because they are not making any catches. Interesting. Well we are heading out into this mess now to visit friends.

I was wondering .. . .

. . . . the other day, why very few people leave a comment on my Blog, so I asked a friend who has left comments on occasion and he said, and I quote, "It's because you have to be smart to leave a comment."
So I checked it out. After checking it out, I discovered that you do indeed have to be at least marginally intelligent to leave a comment. No comment. (Incidentally, a friends 8 year was able to leave a comment!)

The Cormorants have arrived!

There has been a lone Cormorant checking out The Lake for the last week or so. I thought we might escape the huge influx of them that we had this Spring and last Fall, but looking out just a few minutes ago through the windows blurred by rain we saw about 30 to 50 of them right outside the house, just beyond our pier. I guessed at 30 to 50 because it is impossible to count them, they are in a constant state of flux as they are all diving and coming back up again in a constant round of excited gusto. There is absolutely no attempt by them at being tidy, they just go down and come up without even trying to be neat and tidy so that I can count them! How thoughtless of them. They have no consideration of my helplessness as I try in vain to get some kind of accurate count. But I'm afraid the 30 to 50 is the best that I can do for now. I seem to remember in the Spring that I had days when 50 to 100 was the best that I could do. If the number of fish that I have been able to catch in the last few weeks is anything to go by, they will all be gone by the end of the day!
The rain continues to fall, it began early in the afternoon of last Wednesday and has not stopped at all since. Our neighbor Christine informed me solemnly that, "It is a Nor'easter, and they always last for 3 days." When I called her today to tell her that she must be mistaken and that Nor'easters must last 4 or even 5 days she quite blithely said, "It must be two Nor'easters back to back!" Unlike me, some people think very quickly, or perhaps she is right. Who knows. Anyway we have at least 4 inches of rain in the bucket outside - my informal rain gauge - and this in only 3 or 4 days. We had point 12 inches of rain in the first 14 days of October, that is just over one tenth of an inch! But I am happy to see this rain as I spread a lot of grass seed onto the bare patches in our lawn in mid September. As we had no rain after that either, I used the sprinkler to get them moving, but became disenchanted and lazy after a few sessions and no sign of any seedlings. Now I am hopeful that we will finally see a thick green lawn gracing our front and rear deserts.
I will let you know if this happens.

More "Fun" with numbers.

"Fun" because this is not really fun. I just heard that our thieves on Wall Street are to get $140 Billion dollars in bonuses this year! A record!! Their reckless greed brought the World's economy to it's knees, but apparently it is "Business as usual" on Wall Street as they are determined to rape us yet again. Is there anyone out there who can tell me why these complete failures in the "Art" of money management should be rewarded for that failure? They have done their "Jobs" worse than anyone else in any business in the history of the world (With the possible exception of politicians precipitating World Wars 1 & 2 and a host of other wars - but that is another story) and for this failure they are rewarded with impossibly huge sums of money - many of them with more money in one bonus check, than I and most of us will earn in our lifetimes, for failing!
Going to some numbers here - do you realize that if that $140 Billion dollars were to be shared among the 14 million unemployed in this country, (many, maybe even the majority of them put out of work by the monsters in Wall Street who robbed us all blind), that each one of those unemployed would get about $10,000? Instead, the thieving looters of Wall Street get it.
They get OUR money. Yep, that's right, we gave up, in many cases, like us, all of our life's savings, to be given to the bankers, wankers, brokers, etc who ruined our economy. How do we think we will ever be able to control them if not only are they allowed to take TRILLIONS of dollars from us, but having taken it they blatantly hand it out to all their buddies right in front of our noses, and announce it in the media!!! They must be laughing so hard. Obviously they have no intention of straightening out. Having taken everything that we put into their banks and brokerage houses for "Safekeeping" for our old age, and then given it all to themselves, so that there was nothing left, what did they do? They went to the government, cap in hand and asked for more. Our wimpy government gave it to them. They then give us and the government the finger, take the money and replace the money that they stole from the banks. Now what do they do? Not what any halfway decent, reasonable person would do - breathe a sigh of relief, mend their ways and put things straight. No they IMMEDIATELY start to steal it all again!! They must think we are the idiots that we are. Obviously if they don't even have the self control to at least wait a little while before robbing us again they have no intention of straightening themselves out. Instead they intend taking every last penny, leaving nothing for us pee ons. This money should be repaid to us, the American taxpayer, that it was stolen from by these greedmongers.
Why am I so upset? Because like many of my friends and acquaintances they stole way more than we could afford, in our case close to a million dollars, all of our savings and IRA's and most of the equity in our home. We are now in the position of having two mortgages, being unable to sell our old house in spite of having dropped its price almost in half, and thus sending all of our income and then some, to the same banks that already took everything that we had saved by working hard for over 50 years. And then to add even more insult, having worked for over 50 years, lived frugally and saved everything we could for our retirement , as they urged us to do, we are unable to enjoy the fruits of our hard work and frugality. Instead I have had to return to work. Where I will doubtlessly spend the rest of my days laboring to earn money to give to those heartless bastards on Wall Street.
Sometimes I think to myself, "David, you went into the wrong business, you should have gone into banking. But then I realize that I just don't have what it takes to steal millions and billions and trillions of dollars from my friends, neighbors, relatives, children, parents, and virtually everyone on the planet! I just couldn't do it. And I don't understand how they can. And having done it, and got away with it, they are about to do it to us again!"
I hope they can't sleep, I certainly can't.
Well I guess its back to work, or they'll be knocking on my door asking for that $20 bill that I just hid in my sock.

Sunsets, Sunsets, Sunsets

As I have said many times in the past about the Sunsets over The Lake, each one is better than the last! As we have been here for more than a year now, can you believe that, this is obviously getting to be an impossibility. But at least I can say with absolute accuracy, "They are all different." The last few day's sunsets have brought back the possibility of each one being better than the last. They have been amazing. From the comfort of the living or bedroom they are fascinating, but when you go out onto the deck the colors are even bigger and wider. Then when you go down the steps to the "Great outdoors" or even onto the pier, where you are also surrounded by the sights and sounds of the water, it is truly AWESOME. It is hard to come up with the right words, or even close to the right words, it is as if you are right in the middle of this Astonishing, Amazing, Stunning Event. I would even be tempted to use the word Miracle - those of you who know me, know that the use of this word is reserved by me for the few real miracles that have happened in my life. (For the curious, they include my wife Julia my Daughter Sarah and my Grandsons. There have been a few other world shattering events in my long life, but the time left on this blog is too short to elaborate any more.)
Go and see a sunset - or come here and enjoy one/some of ours with me and a good beer.
David

More fun with numbers, climate change and the UK.

I am proud to announce that my birth country, the UK, is the only country in the World so far, to have committed to a plan for reducing carbon emissions - reducing CO2. Their committed plans are to reduce their CO2 emissions by 34% by 2020. The plans include:-
1.7 million electric cars, and the infrastructure to support them.
Insulate at least 10 million homes.
2 new nuclear plants.
4 new coal fired plants with carbon capture and storage technology.
8,000 windmills
Reduce CO2 emissions from producing a KW of electricity from 540 gms to 300 gms.

CO2 production is dropping at about 1/2 to 1% per year at present, HOWEVER this is nowhere near enough to meet the current goals, and it has most likely been achieved simply by reduced industrial output and consumption due to the present economic slump!
Doubtless as CO2 production is dropping (Due to the economy) I predict that calls will be made to reduce efforts to reduce CO2, "Because it is dropping"!
In fact scientists are saying that the 34% goal is way too low a target - we need to at least double that target!!
Food for thought? (And remember the UK is the ONLY country in the WORLD to have committed to reduce its carbon emissions, and agreed to put those reductions into place, and actually started to act on them.)

Another lovely day at The Lake.

It's been another lovely day at The Lake. Actually it's been really nice for several days, we have had a bit of an Indian Summer here, although there have been a lot of quite strong winds. Today, while I was talking to my friend John Hergenroeder on the phone, I saw a big white Egret come in and land right at the edge of The Lake, not even 100 feet from where I was standing on our deck. Then, a few minutes later an Osprey dived in on the other side of The Lake and came up with a fish dinner - more than I've been able to do lately. I've been most unlucky with fishing. But we have caught a few crabs, Bradley is going to come over next Friday and join us in a crab "feast". I say "feast" because we have 8 crabs right now, so even if I catch a few more it is unlikely that we will have more than 3 or 4 each. Part of the trick is keeping them alive for another 6 days, you have to feed them or they will eat each other! And not catching any fish, there isn't much to feed them. Still while talking to John I spotted a Cormorant cruising and diving in The Lake, I hope he is not the reason why I am not catching any fish. And finally just before I hung up the phone, a Great Blue Heron flew across our pier as about 10 or 15 Canada Geese landed, I think they may have disturbed him and caused him to fly off. The weather is just about perfect at 70 degrees and sunny all day. This morning early, The Lake was almost like a mirror, as it often is early, but it is soon covered with small waves as the wind picks up. We are quite sheltered from the winds here. When over at our neighbors opposite who live on The Bay it is often very windy there while over at The Lake, only a hundred yards away, the leaves are barely moving. As I said to Julia, the love of my life, this morning as we lay in bed and gazed at the smooth Lake, the trees changing into their fall colors, the morning sun painting the grasses and trees opposite in pure gold and listened to the birds singing to us - "Just another day in Paradise."
Come visit us.

Food waste

Once again food waste in our household is minimal. It is getting hard to find "Treats" for our chickens. Every morning when I go out there to open them up they come running over to me and race up and down the fence excitedly. It is so nice to see 'someone' who is happy to see me! And they are so grateful for the meager treats that I give them - egg shells, (Broken up so they don't recognize them!) chicken bones after we have boiled them to death for soup, fish bones, tomatoes that have gone bad, carrot tops, cut up banana skins, left over cat food, corn after we have finished it - they get something off of it. A couple of days ago we had a crab "feast", the "feast" consisted of about three crabs each, there are not a lot of crabs in our Lake, but every couple of weeks we have a feast of 3 or 4 crabs each. They make a nice h'ordoevre to a meal. The chickens love to get the crab debris, they eat all the lungs, guts and every little scrap of meat that we missed.They love every little tit bit that I hand them. Fortunately we have friends who are not so frugal as we are and when they come over we hand them some eggs and they hand us bags of goodies for the chickens. A fair exchange.
If you are into trying for zero food waste go over to TheFrugalGirl@gmail.com and check out her blog.

Fun with numbers.

Most of you know that I enjoy having fun with numbers. I have always enjoyed math and numbers.
Many of you will enjoy this little bit of fun. Some won't. But here goes anyway. Our Galaxy, The Milky Way Galaxy, contains a lot of stars, so many in fact that it is impossible to count them all. I have seen estimates of "At least 100 Billion" and also "200 to 400 Billion". Notice that the number is in the Billions - not Millions! Some other Galaxies are bigger than ours and some are smaller. Some of the biggest contain a Trillion or more stars! Lets use 200 Billion as an average number.
Now, most stars that we have been able to 'see' closely have had planets revolving around them. Several planets around each star, so there are probably many more planets than stars. Now for some estimates. It seems to me that at least 1 star in a million would have a planet with intelligent life on it. After all at least one planet out of 8 of this star has intelligent life, if you can classify us as intelligent, some would question that remark, but for the sake of our estimate lets say we are intelligent. At least we are sentient. So, with one intelligent life form in every million stars (Personally I think there are probably a LOT more than that) there would be about 200,000 intelligent life forms in just our Galaxy. That is in one Galaxy! But, there are AT LEAST 100 BILLION Galaxies out there!!! So, all you budding mathematicians out there, multiply 200,000 by 100 billion! Got the answer yet? Me neither. Well lets try, 100 Billion times 200,000 is 200 times 100 trillion. What comes after trillion? I guess it is quadrillion, so the answer would be 20 quadrillion, a number beyond our concept. But that would be an estimate for the number of intelligent races in the known universe, not the number of stars or planets, that would be at least a million times more than 20 quadrillion. No, I am talking the number of planets with intelligent life. Sobering isn't it? If each one of those planets had 6 billion people on it . . . well do a bit more math to come up with an even bigger number!
Assuming that God rules all of those people, Heaven must be really crowded!
Lets go back and say that I was over optimistic with the number of intelligent races in each Galaxy. Lets get really ridiculous and say that there is only one intelligent race per Galaxy. Surely an impossibly small number, one intelligent race on all the planets of all the 200 Billion stars in our Galaxy! OK, with that estimate there are still 100 Billion intelligent races! One for each of the 100 Billion Galaxies in the known Universe!!
Earlier this year some scientists trained the Hubble Space Telescope on a bit of the sky that is completely empty, black, no sign of any stars. This little piece of sky is the size of a grain of sand held at arms length. Try it, pretend to hold a grain of sand up and imagine the piece of sky that the scientists trained the telescope on. They are not even sure why they did it. They left the telescope for ten days - to gather any stray rays of light or whatever might be there. When they checked the results they found, are you ready for this? 10,000 GALAXIES there! 10,000 Galaxies in that tiny spot of sky, not stars, Galaxies, each containing on average 200 Billion stars!
Now, these intelligences out there, are they smarter or dumber than us? Using averages or Bell curves or any other method you care to I would say half are less and half are more intelligent! Certainly some must be more intelligent, WOW.
Hope you enjoyed my little bit of fun.
P.S. Someone who multiplied that number earlier - the number of stars in each Galaxy times the number of Galaxies came up with a number that, he says, is larger than that of all the grains of sand on all the beaches of Earth. Try to imagine that, one star for every grain of sand on every beach in the world. I can't even imagine it for just our little beach at our local park! Think of all the sand on all those beaches in Hawaii and all those lovely beaches along the California coast. And don't forget Florida, and I'm sure there are a lot of beaches in Europe and Africa and S.America, all of them with a whole lot of sand on them! That's a lot of stars. Well, it gives you something to think about while you sit on the toilet or watch the evening news or drink a beer and watch the sun set.
Night, night, sleep tight.

News from The Lake.

Fall is arriving at The Lake, yesterday some Canada Geese flew in. They left shortly afterwards, maybe to check out other nearby locations to spend their winter, but I am confident that they will return. I cannot imagine them finding a lovelier place. The leaves are starting to change - not quite up to Shenandoah standards, but we have our own understated standards on The Lake - not that "Brash, over the top brightness" of Canada either! The fish and crabs seem to be deserting us, no doubt heading for the warm depths of the Chesapeake Bay, which is a shame as we will miss our weekly fish dinner from The Lake, not to mention the monthly crab "Feasts". Our "Crab Feasts" were usually of 3 or 4 crabs each for the two of us - there are not a whole lot of crabs in The Lake - but they make a nice hor'doevre to start a fish dinner! But when the crabs and fish go the birds arrive, so I mustn't be too sad. Our beautiful birds are a delight to watch and I could spend hours doing just that, if only I didn't have to work!
In other news, I now have my first fan, and a fabulous fan she is too. She spoke glowingly of my writings - and didn't even ask me for a loan! The very first person ever tell me that, and I quote here "You write very well" I also seem to remember something about talent, heartfelt descriptions, great knack, you should consider writing a book etc. And as I said before, she did not ask me for a loan, so it must be true, right?
Well more to follow later from The Lake as winter approaches.

National Health Insurance.

More stuff about a National Health Insurance. Apart from saving the 30% administration costs of the insurance companies, in favor of the 4% administration costs of a National Health system, we could also save the 20 or 30 million dollars that your insurance company pays its CEO! Then there is the one treatment in five that is turned down by your insurance company. It is expensive to maintain a huge team whose sole purpose is to find reasons to turn down the treatment that you need. Why not spend that money to treat you? The big insurance companies are in it strictly for profit. (No other civilized country in the world has a for profit Health Insurance BUSINESS.) Every claim that they pay comes right off of their bottom line - out of their profit. Why would they want to pay? Why are we the only country in the world that makes a profit out of your being sick? 45,000 people a year die in the US because they don't have health insurance, 700,000 people a year go bankrupt in the US because of health care costs. They don't allow you to go without health care or to go bankrupt because of health care costs in Europe.
I'm sure everyone is saying "We don't want Socialised medicine". Why? I'll tell you why, because there are hundreds of lobbyists in Washington whose sole purpose in life is to distribute money to Congressmen to get them to keep the Health Insurance BUSINESS in business and to basically tell lies about National Health Insurance in other countries so that the fat cat CEO's can continue to rip us off and collect their tens of millions of dollars in pay. Health Insurance Companies spend $1.4 million dollars per DAY lobbying against National Health Insurance. 75% of Americans are in favor of it.
The National Health Insurance in Canada, UK, France, Germany etc treat their citizens for less than half what the US spends per person. AND they all have a longer life expectancy than we in the US have! Out of the top 50 countries with the longest life expectancies in the world the US ranks 50th! For infant mortality we are 33rd! This is with by far the most expensive health care in the world!!
Even Cuba has a longer life expectancy and a lower infant mortality rate. They spend approx $250.00 per person per year (All of their citizens are covered) while the US spends approx $16,000 per person per year (About 85% are covered) I don't think that I would want to live in Cuba! But if all of their citizens have National Health Insurance at a reasonable rate, why can't the US?
The reason is the For Profit Health Insurance BUSINESS, not satisfied with the exorbitant profits and salaries that they were making ten years ago their profits have increased by over 400% since then. We have the right to a good "free" education in the US but apparently we don't have the right to a good "free" health care. Surely that is as important as education? To repeat - the only country that makes a PROFIT, and a HUGE one out of our being sick. Your being ill. or any member of your family being ill, can cost you everything that you have worked for and accumulated your whole life, 700,000 families a year bankrupted by health care costs. It is wrong, WRONG, WRONG. There is hardly any attempt to keep us healthy, why try to keep people healthy when you make more money out them being sick? In Europe the Doctors are encouraged to keep their patients healthy, they get paid more if they have healthy patients!

Murder?

At what point does the poisoning of our air, our water and our bodies by industry, for their huge profits, become murder?

"Socialised Medicine"

I have to admit that do not understand the problem with "Socialised Medicine". With my present Health Insurance the Administration costs are 30%, if I am already sick I cannot get coverage, if I get sick I can be dropped. Whereas with "Socialised Medicine" if I have been sick I am covered, if I get sick I don't have to worry about getting dropped and I get treated. Oh yes and Administration costs are around 4%. Where is the problem? And by the way the National Health treatment costs in Europe and Canada are about half of what the US spends per person for treatment!

Now everyone knows that the US has the best, and the most expensive, health care in the world. (We spend more than twice as much per person as Europe does.) But at least we know that we have the best care and therefore the longest life expectancy, right? Whoops, on a list of the 50 countries with the longest life expectancy, we are . . . . . 50th!! How can that be? I don't know, but at least we are slightly better in the infant mortality rate . . . 33rd out of 50, below Slovenia, way below Cuba and of course below all the European countries - who all have the "Socialised Health Care" that we don't want anything to do with here under any circumstances! Why not? Apparently if we used their system we could expect to live longer healthier lives, at a cost of half of what we now pay! I guess we just don't want those Big Health Executives and their Big Health Businesses to lose their billions of dollars in profits.

Food waste

As usual we had no food waste this week - when you keep chickens there is virtually never any waste! In fact I have to scrape around very carefully to find any treats to give them. I almost hope sometimes that something will get dropped on the floor and have to go into "The chickens pot". We have a cat, he is old and gets a lot of canned food, unlike us he is very wasteful and rarely eats all of his food! The chickens LOVE cat food, sometimes I am afraid that they will kill each other for it!!! The only thing that they love more than cat food is chicken scraps. After we have finished with a chicken Julia will put all the remains into a pot and boil the heck out of it to make soup or stock. What is left goes to the chickens, they love it. Same with the remains after we have had a meal of fried chicken, they will always find a few pieces that we missed. Last week we had crabs (From our pier - who can afford $60 for a dozen large crabs?) all the scraps go into the chicken run and they gobble up all that yucky mustard, the lungs, the guts, and every tiny piece of meat that was missed. Same with fish, also caught at our pier, when the meal is finished the skin and bones go in and in return we get a big thank you in the form of much clucking, scratching and egg laying. There is never any waste from our garden either, they love those tomatoes that are past their best or have been badly pecked by the birds, the lettuce that went to seed - a treat made for a king, or a chicken! All the carrot tops, beet skins, reject spinach leaves, seeds from the cantaloupes and squash, a cucumber that was left too long, they appreciate them all.

Presidents speech.

Our children will be taught by men and women, blacks and whites, gays and straights, conservatives and liberals and every other possible combination. It is OUR job to live the lives that we want our children to live. If we are thieves, the chances are that our children will be thieves. If we are risk takers or prudent or surly or brash or decent, kind, caring, tolerant human beings the chances are our children will have at least some of those traits. We are all exposed, or should be, to all kinds of views and will make up our own minds based on our own experiences. The best we can hope for, is that if we show enough of our values to them, our children will reflect at least some of those values. The only thing we can do is live our lives as well and as responsibly as we can so that some of that will rub off onto our children. It's the best that we can hope for. Hysterical rantings about a President who wants to give a speech encouraging children to stay in school, work hard, get as good an education as possible and try, try, try, is not going to be looked upon favorably by an intelligent child. Anymore than shouting and ranting to the media that they don't want the President asking children to write an essay about how they can help their President. (Which seems like a perfectly reasonable request to me - maybe they are upset that the last President didn't make a similar request?)
Saying that students should not be allowed to listen to their President is unbelievable. What are they afraid of? That he will make more sense than they do? Many previous Presidents have spoken to our children before, there has never been this kind of hysteria before. George Bush was reading to children when 9-11 happened (Did everyone get to vet what he was reading to them?) and he thought it was so important that he continued reading to them even after he had been told about the attacks!
If you don't like his views (After you have listened to them - because like most people's views if you really listen to them, they make sense.) you have ample opportunity to give your children your views. It will make more impression on them too if you just give your views and let the child make up his own mind. Ranting and raving, spewing invectives of hate and being out of control will not impress a smart kid. You live with your children and have many hours to show them how to live.
We can say to our children, "I think you are great, stay in school, work hard, I think you can do better than I did." What is wrong with other people, especially the President reinforcing that message. I can't understand anyone being upset about that. It's the President of the United States talking to our kids about their education for goodness sake.
The only political part of this speech is by the people who hate Obama. Maybe some people are upset because Obama is proof that even a poor person can become the President if he works hard enough!

I'm adding to this on 9/8/09 to repeat what I said earlier in the text of my Blog - our children learn from us, we may be surprised at just what and how much. These things may come up later in life and surprise us! Don't be surprised if your child cheats if you did, they will have learnt that from you! If it's OK for you to cheat, they learned, then it's OK for them. It is also quite amazing how many children of people who committed suicide commit suicide themselves. If it's OK for Mum/Dad to commit suicide then it must be OK for me. Think about that when you are planning to "End it all", as someone told me recently they were thinking of doing, you might be telling your kids that it's OK to do the same.
So, to reiterate, your kids learn the most from you, don't worry too much about what they learn from others, there is really very little you can do about the all pervasive media, except instill your own good teachings and hope that you did a good job. (Apparently I did an excellent job, about the best job on anything that I have done in my life! Either that or she is so smart that she figured it all out for herself!)

We're Back.

We have just returned from 3 weeks in Europe - most spent in the UK. A couple of things to report - we usually fly British Airways and this time was no exception. Julia and I have been flying for 45 years, ever since our first flight to Yugoslavia in 1964, on our honeymoon. In all of that time I estimate that we have made more than 400 flights. For the first time ever, in all of those flights we were given an upgrade! Not much of one its true, but an upgrade never-the-less. British Airways has four classes - first there is "Cattle Class", which they call "World Traveller", then there is "World Traveller Plus", then "Business Class" and finally "First Class". We were upgraded to "World Traveller Plus". The one we usually frequent, World Traveller, is 7 seats across on this plane, the World Traveller Plus is 6 seats across, giving a slightly wider seat, plus they are further apart which gives more legroom too. All very welcome, especially as we had to sit on the runway for an hour before we took off. Getting off in Baltimore was nice too because we were one of the first off and we were very early in line for Customs. Of course having got to the luggage early and then picking up the first 3 of our 4 bags we then had to wait until almost all of the bags were delivered before we got our last bag! But, glad to be back, and to have Sarah pick us up, and to get back to our lovely new home on The Lake, which we had missed. In all of the years that we have been travelling, neither of us can remember missing our home, until now. We both missed home this time, which just goes to show you how much we love this place.
Second thing, it has been almost two years since we were last in the UK, the longest period in some time between trips due to our house building, Julia's new knee and all the problems with the builder etc. Anyway, one of the things that I noticed about the UK this trip was - all the fat people! I guess it has been happening slowly over the years but it seemed to be more noticeable this time, partly because of the longer break since we've been there I'm sure, but also partly because they ARE fatter! Especially the women. We hear about the number of obese people in the US, but I really think there are more in the UK now! This brings me to my theory about their added weight. During our stay we visited two or three supermarkets near my parents house and I was reminded of the choices available in the British supermarkets. Hard as it may be to believe, the variety of choices there are three or four times as many as in a supermarket here. I don't know how they get through their shopping - there are SO many choices. For example, I happen to like marmalade, my supermarket here has maybe 6 different ones to choose from, there, I could probably choose from 30 or 40 different ones! All the supermarkets that we went into baked their own bread, there simply wasn't enough time in the day to look at all the different breads available. Same with cookies, there had to be a hundred different, at least, and I am not lying! It was the same with everything, a hundred different cheeses? Every fruit or vegetable you can think of from every part of the world. Chocolate, I must have spent a half hour looking at them all, in the end I couldn't decide which one to buy, so I bought a half dozen! There is no way most people have the time to look at all the choices, if you need to buy 10 items you have hundreds to look at and decide amongst. So, my theory is that a lot of people can't decide, so they do what I did and buy several! Then they eat them all! The thin people are probably either very busy or have no imagination and buy the same thing every week without looking at anything else.
Just a thought.
We are happy to be back and looking forward to getting together with our friends and neighbors.

Cash for clunkers.

Just a thought but it seems to me that the reason for the Cash for Clunkers program is to help reduce our use of oil and therefore our dependence on foreign oil.
To this end something like the following would seem to make sense. Using 18 mpg as a base - which they are using now - how about if you were to get a refund of $1,000 if you bought a new car that got 10 mpg more than the base, $2,000 for a car with 20 mpg over the base, $3,000 for 30 mpg over and $4,000 for 40 mpg over the base (Or 58 mpg, not sure if that is available yet or not.) This way we would get more value for money by encouraging people to get the more gas efficient cars on the road. Just a thought.

Health Insurance.

A touchy and complicated subject, why would you want to even go there David? Maybe because I have a new idea! At least I have never heard any one bring this up.
First, lets cover the main points real fast. When I was in business for myself and raking in the princely sum of $50,000 a year - most years - for working 60 to 80 hours and 6 days per week, I was paying $1,000 a month for health insurance for my wife and myself. That amounted to 24% of our income (and doesn't include the deductibles, for doctor and hospital and medicines. So it was actually more than 24% of our income.) Now that we are retired we pay $96 Medicare and $32 for drug coverage each - $128 a month each. That comes out of my wife's SS of $660 - so that's 19% of her income, and $128 out of my $1700 is about 8% of my income. Again it does not include deductibles on Dr. Hosp. and Rx. So the lowest I've paid in the last 30 years or so is 8% of my income in Health Ins and usually two or three times as much, or more.
If the US went to a National Health Insurance, everyone would need to pay in depending on their income. The simple number to pick out of the air would be 10%, seems reasonable, or actually low based on my experience. But lets use it. So using my income - before I was retired of $50,000, I'd pay $5,000 or $417 a month. - a lot less than the $12,000/yr or $1,000/mo that I was paying, so I'd be happy. Some pay less now, so they'd be unhappy, I guess. But maybe not, if they earn say $30,000 they'd be paying $3,000 a year or $250 per month - real low!
Now for my big idea. I think that the people who cause the expensive medical care should pay their share. I am referring to manufacturers who make defective products that cause injuries, illnesses and deaths. Why should they not pay their fair share? Lets take a small example, and here I will have to use some figures that I am pulling out of the air, they seem reasonable to me, and I'm sure someone smarter than me could verify or put them in perspective. Now follow me closely here. Lawnmower accidents, lets say there are 100,000 per year and it costs the hospital $1,000 on average to fix up each injury. That's 100 million dollars. Now, how many lawnmowers are sold a year? Lets guess 10 million. So, if we tax each lawn mower a $10 'Health Ins Charge', we collect 100 million dollars - enough to cover the medical costs incurred by the manufacturers machines. The manufacturers meanwhile can say, "We don't want our machines to cost an extra $10 each, what can we do?" Well what they can do is design their machines to be safer and cause less injuries. Lets say they do that and in a couple of years lawnmower injuries drop in half to 50,000 a year, the Health Ins Charge could then be dropped to $5 per machine.
We can check with the Hospitals to see what are the most dangerous things that cause the most injuries, illnesses and deaths and are the most expensive. Why should these things not pay for the misery and expense they cause? They make their living, and profit from them and it is in their power to reduce those costs and I'm sure if it was financially profitable to them they would. Other items that come immediately to mind are :- Chain Saws, Cars, Cigarettes, Guns, Alcohol, Soda's, Fast Foods, Fat Foods, I'm sure there a few more. That Health Ins Charge - which is within the makers power to reduce, and if they did would be win/win/win situation for everyone involved, would go to the National Health Insurance to help reduce every ones premiums.
There are probably a couple of other place to pull money into the National Health Ins Fund without too much pain. Lets see, how about a tax on gambling etc, the good old sin taxes, or add 1% to the sales tax of every State, they can collect it - it shouldn't cost a lot more for them to collect as they already do it, and then they send in the 1% to the National Health Ins Fund every week or month. A lot cheaper than the Feds setting up a whole new Federal Sales Tax and it would only tax money that was spent (Not incomes, savings etc) Of course there would be a deductible - say $10 when you visit a Doctor, $10 for a Rx, otherwise people would go to the Doctor for a band aid or a bottle of Aspirin. We would also be collecting money from 47 million more people than we are now - the 47 million uninsured Americans, and we'd be collecting from the rich people too, someone making a million dollars a year would be contributing $100,000! Someone making $20,000 would be contributing $2,000 - seems fair to me.
It would probably be possible to reduce the 10% National Health Ins Tax by using those suggestions, maybe considerably - to 8% say or even 6%.
Comments please.

Food waste.

We have chickens - so we don't have food waste, they will eat virtually anything except . . Wait we did have some food waste the other day, chickens will not eat anything citric, like oranges, lemons, limes etc. The other day there was a perfectly good looking orange - until I picked it up and turned it over, gross, no way we could eat even a bit of it and I knew the chickens wouldn't touch it. So, on to the compost pile. I guess that counts as waste huh? We also live on the water and as you can't put any meats or fats onto the compost if we EVER do have meat waste that I don't want to give to the chickens, that goes into the crab trap.

Rascal's Big Adventure.

I had trouble sleeping last night. We went to bed at 11.30 and after a half an hour I got up and read for about two hours. I think that I also went out onto the deck. Back in bed I lay for some more hours, I remember watching the clock at 4.00 and 5.00. The next thing I remember is Julia saying, "Oh my God the door is open." I looked up and sure enough the bedroom door out onto the deck was wide open. The time was 7.30. It was windy, I must not have pushed it hard enough to latch and the wind had blown it open. Rascal the cat has not been out since we moved here. For the first 9 months he showed no interest in going out, but lately he has been looking out a lot and if the door is left with just the screen door, he sits by it and smells the air. Well he must have smelled the air this morning and headed straight outside. I searched the house in case he was still in but found no sign of him, I really hadn't expected to because ever since we moved in, wherever Julia is, there is Rascal. Julia was in the bedroom, so it followed Rascal must also have been in the bedroom where he would have smelled the scent of the open road - once a cat, always a cat I guess. So I went outside, closed the door and went looking for him. I found him at the bottom of the steps and when I went to pick him up he bolted up the stairs to the door, which was closed. I approached cautiously, he was looking panicky as I got close but I managed to reach over him and open the door. He shot in and lay down. A Big Day for Rascal.

A visit.

Our very good friends Mary & Don visited last night. There are few things in life as good as friends, and family, and these are wonderful friends indeed. They came bearing gifts, wonderful gifts from wonderful friends. What kind of wonderful gifts you say? What does it matter, if it comes from friends it's great whatever it is. But as it happens these were super - food - a huge box of fruit and vegetables AND a home made carrot cake. What more could anyone ask? We hugged, we ate, we talked, we hugged, talked some more, we played cards, they let me win, we hugged again (I especially like that part) and they left. A lovely evening.

Cancer survival

My daughter is approaching the 20 year survival mark of her battle with Cancer. It began just a couple of days before Christmas 1989 and continued for most of the next year, much of it spent in Johns Hopkins Hospital, an Institution that we are fortunate enough to reside close to. There is no way that I could possibly go into the high's and lows, mostly lows, of that year. The nightmares, pain and tears, live in me even now every day. The pain and suffering that my daughter endured remains with me as one of my recurring nightmares. In fact even now I am starting to lose it, so I'll end this very short Blog with a prayer of thanks for her recovery and her new lease on life - which also gave me a new lease on life, there is no way I could have gone on without her.

Giant Egret

A surprise awaited me this morning as I gazed out at my own personal piece of Heaven, (No you idiot, The Lake, not Julia.) because there, right outside of the window, was a beautiful Giant Egret stalking the shallows. I watched fascinated as he (or she?) busily thinned out The Lakes stocks of minnows and other small fish. As I watched, I wondered what those fish think about as they swim around in their own world, surely almost completely oblivious of a whole other Universe right next door to their own. All they can see of that Universe, from theirs, is a new "tree" towering from its base, right up through their realm and out into that "Other World" beyond their sight. A World that they can never visit. Then 'BAM', all of a sudden they are grabbed by a huge powerful pair of tongs, whisked completely up and out of their World into a entirely alien one, that they get to see see for a few brief terrifying seconds, until they are plunged deep into the even more terrifying world of the belly of one of the denizens of that 'other world' that they can never visit, except as food for the aliens.

Hmm, I wonder, do we live right next to another Cosmos that we are as entirely unaware of? Are we as unaware of a world right next to ours that we know as little about as the fish in my Lake know about our world? Just think, what do they know of us? They see our shadows, sometimes they see us if we pull them out of the water, they may even be lucky enough to survive the trip and be placed back into their own wonderful world, but what did they learn of our world from their brief visit? Do they now know about our homes, our family life, pets, TV, MacDonalds, cars, our forms of communication, books, education, politicians now? I don't think so. If there is another, or many other, forms of life as far above us as we are above fish, how could we possibly know about them? Why should we be the 'ultimate' form of life? I'm sure the fish thinks he is the top of the chain. The usual way of 'things' is that most 'things' are somewhere in the middle of a "bell curve", why should we be right on one side of that curve? Isn't it much more likely that we are more in the middle. In the scheme of things - and of bell curves - it is in fact highly unlikely that an item is going to fall all the way to one side. So, we are much much more likely to fall somewhere in the midstream. I must say that I would hope we fall more to the 'high end', but we are probably sort of Middling, more than a microbe, but less than a God. After all what kind of a job are we making of even taking care of ourselves and our kind? Pretty awful I'm sure we would all agree on that. We can't be even be a little bit Tolerant of each other, let alone care for or love each other. War, Hate, Envy, Stealing, Hurting, and a whole bunch of other nasty stuff is "What We Do Best", surely we cannot be the best the the Universe has to offer?
What do you think?
Have a Happy Day.
David.

Friends of The Lake

This is for my friends who follow my Blog to read about The Lake and it's unique wildlife and my stories about them.

Apart from the Fish and the Mosquitoes, 90% of the visible species of wildlife on The Lake are Birds. Actually, come to think of it there aren't all that many mosquitoes. I wonder why that is? Everyone thinks that there are a lot of mosquitoes around lakes, but I think that may be a misnomer. Could it be because mosquitoes lay their eggs in water and with such a huge amount of water in The Lake they don't have to look for little pools, they just get lazy and lay them right there in The Lake where the layers and the layees become a tasty snack for the minnows that abound there. One supposes that mosquitoes lay their future issue in still, dank, stagnant water and maybe they do usually, but The Lake is often so still that it is like a mirror and it fools them into laying their precious cargo there - or maybe like us, they are just lazy. Anyway, I don't see a whole lot of mosquitoes around here.

As I said, most of the wildlife around The Lake is in the form of our wonderful and hugely varied bird population. Today's short stories are about two of those birds.

The first story is about a Cormorant that Julia saw last week, just one, on it's own and just once. It must have been lost or on its way somewhere else when it stopped in for a quick snack. Some of you will remember that earlier in the year when I first saw the Cormorant "Invasion", I had been concerned enough to call the Dept of Natural Resources. There were at times 50 or more of these fascinating diving birds here, all feasting on "My" fish! The DNR assured me that they were just passing through on their way north - to the Great Lakes, and sure enough in a few weeks they had disappeared. The DNR also told me that the Cormorants are making quite a comeback all over this area, having been almost extinct once in The Chesapeake Bay. In the Great Lakes they have rebounded from a few dozen pairs to a few thousand pairs today. Another success story - unless you are a fish!

The second story occurred today. Julia was doing her civic duty and carefully keeping watch on all of her charges, otherwise known as 'The Lake's Wildlife,' when she spotted one of her favorites, an Osprey, who dived into The Lake right in front of her and came up with a big fish. Now here is where we learned something, apparently the fish is often killed right away. We know this is not always the case because to our horror we have often watched the Osprey perched in a tree eating a still struggling fish. But don't worry about us, we are used to this now! Anyway we know this fish was dead because the Osprey dropped it into The Lake and it just floated. We watched for some time expecting the fish to be just stunned and to suddenly come to life and swim away. But it just bobbed along on the little wavelets. The Osprey did a couple of fly-bys right over the body and then flew away. We could not understand that, he had already caught it, now all he had to do was pick it up. Mind you, it was a very big fish, but I doubt if that was the problem, I guess they just don't eat dead things and maybe he wasn't smart enough to know that he had just caught and killed it himself!

After that we got to wondering what was going to happen to the fish body. You hadn't wondered about things like that? Too much other important stuff to think about? Well why don't you break out of that rut and just spend a couple of minutes thinking about what will happen to the dead fish. Julia's immediate thought was, "The Buzzards will get it." But the Buzzards don't go onto the water. My response was, "Yes, when it reaches the shore." So her reply was, "If the crabs don't get it first." Of course it will also have to run the gamut of the other fish, the minnows and any other bird that spots it. If it, or any of it's remains do somehow make the shore and it is nighttime, there is not much chance that it will escape the notice of the Raccoons or the Possum, not forgetting any hungry cats or dogs. There are doubtless other unseen night creatures that search the shore line at night. All these ensure that we rarely, if ever are subjected to nasty smells around our perfect piece of heaven. Night, night, sleep tight.

Pro and Con

Pro and Con, if Pro is the opposite of Con, is Progress the opposite of Congress?

July 20th 1969

I've been busy lately. I meant to do a Blog on our fantastic achievement in 1969 of landing a man on the Moon and retuning him safely to Earth. Not many people know that I had a small part in the project myself, having worked at RAF Farnborough in the UK from 1961 to 1964. During this time the US Astronauts visited Farnborough several times to use our large Centrifuge. We also worked on ways of preventing another fire in the Capsule after the fatal fire that took the lives of several Astronauts. There were a number of other interesting experiments and tests that we did to further the project.
Having said that I have to say that I have been very disappointed in the progress in Space Exploration since the Moon Landing. I had fully expected by now, 40 years on, that we would at least have a Moon Colony with regular trips being made to the Moon. (I even had dreams of going myself.) Certainly I thought that my children and grandchildren would likely have been and find it "old hat". I thought we would have had manned trips to Mars, most of the other Planets and have ships on their way to the Stars. Instead, virtually nothing has happened, not even more trips to the Moon! Has such a long period gone by without major exploration since we set off in ships to explore the seas? I don't think so. We have stagnated. Sitting on our butts, we are going to drown in our own filth as we pollute and ruin our home, The Earth. We need to be looking for places to expand into (And ruin!) as we have done for centuries. If we stay here we are doomed.

Right wing crazies.

There are still some right wing crazies out there that are saying Obama is not a US citizen. This is in spite of the birth certificate being produced, the courts ruling him a citizen and the newspaper in Hawaii producing the paper with his birth announcement in it. Even John McCain says that Obama is a US Citizen. And McCain was born in Panama! I didn't hear any fuss from anyone about that. I think it is time for Rush Limberger and his ilk to settle down and accept the truth. They are not doing themselves or anyone else any good, with their wingeing.

The Wonderful Fig

Figs are delicious, they are also high in calcium and fiber, and they are delicious. They can be eaten freshly picked, or dried, or made into a delicious jam. They can only be picked when ripe as they will not ripen after picking, so do not travel well. If really ripe they are one of the most delicious fruits you can get. The flower of the fig is INSDE of the fruit! A tiny wasp enters the fruit through a small hole that opens in the end of the fruit when it is ripe. The wasp fertilises the flowers that are inside the fruit. (Or other insects can do the job - like ants.) Figs are about 60% sugar. It is said that man could live on figs. Did I mention that they are delicious? Or as my friend Edna Vincent Millay once said -

FIRST FIG

My candle burns at both ends.
It will not last the night,
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.

If you can figure out what that means, please let me know!

As you may have guessed I have a fig tree, several actually, but one in particular is about 15 feet high and 20 feet across, last year I picked, and ate, about 400 figs from this tree. They were delicious! I dried several large jars full, also made jam, and we put some into our morning fruit smoothies, delicious. I thoroughly recommend planting a fig tree. It may take several years to start producing large quantities of fruit, but the sooner you plant it the sooner you will have the fruit - which is delicious - as a famous person once said, the best time to plant a tree is last year, the next best time is now!. So go for it, get planting, now. (They are delicious!)

Insecticides and herbicides.

I was over at Dock Road today. We lived there for 28 years. Some one asked me if I had a problem with Japanese beetles, I said, no. Then I got to thinking about it, the birds eat the beetles. We get a few, they attract the birds who eat them. There are grubs that live in the lawn and eat the grass roots. Moles come and eat the grubs, the moles make tunnels but when the grubs are all gone the moles go. The cabbages and broccoli used to get caterpillars on them, when I saw them I'd go out and pick them off. Sometimes I found myself competeing with the birds. My neighbors on the other hand would spray. This would kill the insects, the birds eat the dead and dying insects and the birds die. Does this make sense? Now there are no birds to eat the insects, so when the insects return - as they always do - more spray. You can also spray to kill the grubs in the lawn, doubtless the moles will eat the poisoned grubs, and die. Now you have no natural controls. Also in my garden were many praying mantiss, they eat lots of insects as do lady bugs - several times their own weight in insects every day. If we spray to kill the insects we also kill the natural controls. And not just the control insects, insecticides also kill bees and butterflies. These sprays are poisons, they go into our food, into our air, into our water and into us. I'm sure that a lot of people will say, "The poisons are safe. The manufacturers say they are." Well I say, "Ask them to drink some, and see how safe they think they are then!" What would you expect the manufactures to say? What would you say if you were selling something? Of course they are going to say they are safe. And of course they are not safe. These poisons are endemic, they are everywhere, as I said before in our food, our air, our water, our children and us. And there are more and more of them being spread over the landscape every day. The touble is, once upon a time there would be an infestation and you would use the insecticide to get rid of it. Now we see one Japaneses Beetle or half a dozen caterpillars and the whole garden has to be sprayed as if there were a plague of locusts! Come on, give the birds a chance, they are anxious to eat them, give them a chance, by spraying everything in sight we are just killing the beneficial insects and birds and everything else that has taken care of these problems for centuries - and longer. It's better to put up with a few weeds and insects that will be taken care of anyway by the things that were put here to do just that, rather than poisoning ourselves, our children, our air and our water. Weeds - there are "Perfect" lawns all over the place, but what I see are huge amounts of weed killer that washes into our water and into the Bay. The Bay used to have lots of underwater grasses, in these grasses lived small fish, crabs and all kinds of life. It was the nursery for our food chain. The grasses have gone, could it be the thousands of tons of weedkiller that are spread on all those lawns? I prefer to have underwater, fish, crabs, oysters, clams and the whole myriad of life that used to be in the Bay. I'm quite happy to put up with a few weeds in exchange for this. If you don't like dandelions, a few minutes each day with a trowel and you can get rid of them, they are easy to find - just look for the big yellow flower that sys "Here I am" - after the first few days you find less and less, and you are comuning with nature and enjoying you property more. Listen to the bees, watch the butterflies, enjoy the 'weeds'. If you have 'weeds", you will also have more bees and butterflies, that is what they feed on. No flowers (weeds), no butterflies. Look at those 'weeds' sometime, there are some lovely ones. buttercups are beautiful, so are violets, cornflowers, red and white clover and many more. Right now my lawn in some areas has masses of 'weeds' with tiny blue flowers on them. There are probably a dozen or more different flowers in my lawn, I can't name them, but I can enjoy them. The weedkiller manufacturers spend millions getting us to hate weeds and telling us to kill them!
(Just like on another subject for another day, our politicians spend millions telling us to hate other peoples. Then when we hate them enough and go to war to kill them they can make vast fortunes selling weapons! But lets save that for another day!)

What about Watermelons?

"What about watermelons?" said the parking lot attendant. "OK" we said, confused,"What about watermelons?" He replied, "You get four for a dollar and one free." as he pointed across the parking lot at the largest pile of watermelons that I had ever seen.
We were in El Paso Texas, just across the border from Juarez Mexico. The time was June 1970. We, was my beautiful wife Julia and myself. If you think Julia is beautiful now you should have seen her in 1970. In 1970 she was 28 years old and 'breathtakingly beautiful' would be a more accurate description. But the attendant was not interested in her, he was only interested in selling his lovely watermelons. Who could resist 5 watermelons for $1.00? Even way back in 1970 that was unheard of. Certainly we couldn't resist and we were soon on our way with 5 big, beautiful, bright green watermelons.
But what were we going to do with 5 watermelons, we were not even all that keen on watermelons, it was not our favorite fruit. But at five for a dollar the deal was irresistable. We stopped and ate a watermelon. We drove on, it is HOT!! in El Paso. We needed ice for the watermelons, ice costs money. Just then we passed a family store at the side of the road. Going back, we went in and asked the owner, "Do you have any water melons?" His answer of "No." encouraged us and we asked "Do you like watermelons?" He looked puzzled, we repeated the question and we were even more encouraged when he replied "Yes." We exchanged a watermelon for a bag of ice. Further up the road we repeated the deal.
Just one of my memories of a full life. I have many more, if you'd like to hear another one leave me a comment. Just click on the 'comments' under this post and ask. I can tell you several stories about when we went into Mexico, or of our travels around the US for three months in a VW bus, or how about Texas at Christmas 1967, or, well you tell me a tale and I'll tell you one. Or two. Or more.

Planting trees.

I have been planting trees and bushes at the Lake House for the last few days and I am reminded of the old saying - "The best time to plant a tree is last year, the next best time is now." This is of course because everyone says, "If only I had planted it last year, I would have a tree by now." From there you go to, "Well you'd better plant it now - or next year you will be saying 'If only I had planted it last year . . ." Again. So, I am planting trees. I'm putting in more than I have room for, more than I need and more than I want, but, some will die and I can pick and choose among the rest which ones to keep. I can even try to move one or two, maybe they will survive and maybe they won't, but at least I won't be saying, "I wish I had planted those trees last year!"

Do it now.

Confucious him say -

Yes Confucious really existed, and he really was smart. Here's an example of just how smart he really was, I like this saying because it reflects my feelings exactly -

"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance."

I could not have put it better or more concisely myself. Unless it is to say - read, or even, please read.

7-7 the UK's 9-11

Today is the fourth anniversary of the Muslim terrorist bombings in London when 52 people were killed and hundreds injured. It happened on July 7th 2005.

Julia.

I've loved you ever since I first saw you. I love to see you smile as much as I love to see the sun rising and the sun setting. What more could this man ask of life other than that the love of my life said "yes" when I asked you to marry me and that you then gave me a daughter almost as beautiful as you are, and then you stayed with me for 47 years.
A perfect life and a perfect wife.
All my love, David XXX

An evening on the deck by The Lake.

Our friends Bob and Ann came to dinner last night. A rare treat. They brought a bottle of red wine made from organically grown grapes which we drank with dinner on our new deck. They seemed to be suitably impressed with the deck, who wouldn't be, it is big and new, sporting a table and chairs shaded with a big green umbrella, surrounded with cushioned easy chairs and overlooking a Lake that is without a doubt the most beautiful in Anne Arundel County. In addition there is shade from some lovely evergreen trees and a view of a different sunset every night of the year. Last night produced another good sundown. The two trio's of Goslings put in an appearance, a flotilla of our fine feathered friends, visiting briefly along with their parents. They came late and we had hoped for a longer stay - maybe even one of their frequent forays up onto our lawn for one of the Lake Treats where they tend our lawn as they lovingly remove the weeds and graze the more delicious stalks. It is a picture indeed and much better than me having to push the noisy mower around. While "mowing" they also fertilize. But this was to be a short visit, a 'sail by' as it were, as the two flotilla's appeared on the horizon, came fairly close and then disappeared while we were distracted with something else - maybe it was the blueberry pie, ice cream and whipped cream - or maybe I was distracted by the two beautiful women.
But the sun went down, the mosquito's came out, and found us, and we were forced to retreat to the cool interior where we continued our visit until it was time for the inevitable parting. They roared off in their bright red Mustang, Ann's blonde hair flying in the wind and Bob's grey hair doing the same.
We went in to finish the wine, but it was all gone. After a few minutes of checking the "news" we decided to have an early night.

I was thinking . . .

Just about the time that I realized that maybe my father was right I had my daughter Sarah who thought that I was wrong. I think she realized that I might be right about at least a few things somewhere around the time that she had her son Bradley, who undoubtably thinks that she is wrong. Now Bradley is 16, has a girlfriend and it occurs to me that sometime in the next 5 or 10 years he will have a son/daughter who will think that he is wrong - right about the time that he realizes that his mother was right after all. Twenty years after that . . . . .

Water, water everywhere.

While our friends in San Antonio, Texas are suffering from the heat and a drought, we in Central Maryland are under a flood warning. Our esteemed weather forecasters called for a 1/4 inch of rain today. However, I have been up since 5.00 am watching The Lake level rise and can assure them that they are wrong, wrong, wrong, as of now we have had almost 2 inches of rain this morning and it is still raining like crazy. The weather channel is frantically issuing flood warnings for our area every five minutes and The Lake level is about a foot higher than it was when I got up this morning. (The water level in The Lake is of course not just dependant on the rainfall, the runoff accounts for more of a rise than just the 2 inches of rain on it's own.) I just called one of my neighbors to warn him that the boat and chairs on his pier are about to become floating boats and chairs. I watched from the comfort of my easy chair as he came out with his umbrella to rescue his nice white Adirondack chairs. So far he has left the boat. Maybe it is tied to the pier or maybe the lightening is too scary for him! I don't blame him. Our "boat" - an 8 foot long aluminum jonboat is safely on land. Unfortunately I did not turn it over, so it is probably half full of water. I use the term 'land' loosely as it is getting harder to separate our lawn from the water of The Lake, they look just about equally wet.
I'm sure that our friends Tom & Martha in Texas would be happy to observe what I am looking at now! But it is not to be Tom, sorry, you are going to have to put up with 100 degrees plus temperatures and a dry as dust lawn. In this modern day and age I think we should be able to do some swapping between States - rainfall for sunshine etc. But as wonderful as our technology is in some areas, Wii, cell phones that blow up your tires, barbecue your hamburgers, cut your hair and mow your lawn, not to forget Sexting and even making phone calls, we still can't do a simple thing like moving rain and heat around. Lets get on that as soon as we fix the economy, health care, put a solar car in every garage, and a robot in every home.
Back to the present, it is still raining. Gotta go and get more coffee.
David.

Being wrong, and right.

I f you don't say anything and don't do anything you can never be wrong and you can never look stupid. But on the other hand you can never be right either!

Bang, bang, bang

We went to bed quite early last night, at about 10.30, as I have a busy day today. At about 10.45 we heard some strange sounds like loud pops and bangs. Gunshots? Fireworks? At 1/4 to 11.00? A few minutes later it happened again, minutes later, again. I got up and went outside, nothing, came back inside and it happened again. I went out and waited, after five minutes there was still nothing, but as soon as I came back in it happened again, I went out again and this time waited 10 minutes. Again nothing, until just after I came back in. I never did see any fireworks and never determined what it all was. Back to bed and sleep.
At a quarter to 12.00 I was a woken by an awful, loud wailing sound. Our smoke detectors, we have 5 of them in the house, were all going off together and the sound was deafening. I got up again and toured the house, no sign of any fire or smoke but the detectors continued to wail. I waved a tray under them all, no good, they continued. I had no idea what to do, I was reluctant to take the batteries out of 5 smoke detectors, especially as there could be a fire somewhere and in any case I think that they are on the regular electric too. I had no idea how to turn them off. After about 20 minutes they stopped, although one or two went off on their own for a few seconds. Then they all stopped. Again no idea what set them off. Back to bed and sleep.
At 2.30 we were woken by a tremendous flash of light and an almost simultaneous explosion. Thunder and lightening. The storm continued unabated for . . . about 5 minutes! That was it, about a half dozen flashes and bangs and it was over. Back to sleep.
Now it is time to get up and go to work.

An exciting day at The Lake.

I got up at 6.00am 0n Tuesday to a fine clear day. The sun was just up, both the sky and The Lake were a lovely pink color. I went down and sat on the pier to look and listen for any signs of a repetition of yesterdays splashings of the carp spawning in The Lake, but there was none. Not a sound, not even a ripple, The Lake was perfectly smooth and quiet. So I went back to bed. Less than an hour later it was raining, heavily, which was quite remarkable as there had been hardly a cloud in the sky an hour earlier. We got ready to go to Annapolis and got there in the afternoon after a couple of stops on the way. By now the day was so glorius that we took a harbor cruise, visiting Annapolis Harbor, the Severn River and the Naval Academy. The sky was clear and it was very sunny and hot. Next stop was at The Red Lobster Restaurant to get Lobsters for Margaret & Ed. While in there Sarah called to tell us that the boys ball game had been cancelled, "Due to the storm." Apparently they were having a really bad storm but there was sign of a storm where we were. However when we left a short time later it was clouding up fast and by the time we got to Trader Joe's a few miles away the sky was looking very black. Just after we got into the store it started and we couldn't get out for almost an hour. The rain and wind were some of the heaviest I have ever seen anywhere. Eventually a man from the store escorted us out to our car with an umbrella. It rained all the way home. When we got home there was no real damage, except for a few small branches down but the big heavy bench on the pier had been blown into The Lake and was nowhere to be seen. With thick heavy cloud covering the sky we could see no chance of a nice sunset for Margaret & Ed's last full day here. But to out absolute amazement as the time of sunset approached the sky started to clear and we had one of the best sunsets ever. It got better and better as the clouds cleared away and were replaced with blue that turned to a wonderful gold.
The next day, Wednesday, Ed and I went out in the kayaks to look for the bench and found it only a couple of hundred feet away at the edge of The Lake in the bushes. We towed it back and put it on the lawn.
So we went from clear sky to storm, back to sunshine, back to storm and back to blue sky and a great sunset.
All in all a very eventful and exciting day.

Two things that never come back

Two things that you can never get back are the words you speak and lost opportunities. So, be sure to think carefully before you speak those words, escpecially if you have any thought at all that you may regret them someday!
Lost opportunities - if you make a wrong judgement they could get you into the same trouble as those words you might regret - but I am thinking now mostly about more mundane opportunities, like taking that photo, like getting up to see the sun rise, like complimenting a friend, or a stranger, like telling someone you love them. I've missed chances in life, we all have. The house you should have bought, the girl/guy you let get away, the investment you missed, there are dozens of these biggies that are gone and we regret, but I am not talking about those opportunities now, I am talking about the little ones. Don't forget to tell your little grandson what a great job he did on the ball field today, to thank your wife for the special dinner she cooked, your parents for anything, friends - for being your friends. When you hear of something unusual that is going to happen take the trouble to witness it, meteor showers - ever seen one? It's worth watching - when one is announced in the paper take the opportunity to watch. The space station going over - get up and watch it. Is the sun going to come up tomorrow? Take the opportunity one day to check and make sure that it does! Your grandchildren's graduation, ballgame, science project, school play, first . . . whatever, don't miss the opportunity because it doesn't come back.

More adventures from The Lake.

Last night we had another full moon, it was big and beautiful, hanging in the sky above our small and beautiful Lake.
I awoke at about 5 o'clock this morning and looking out at The Lake through the 10 floor to ceiling windows of our bedroom I saw a huge red moon hanging just above the trees across The Lake. A ribbon of red lay on the water all the way up to our bulkhead. I got up quickly, slipped on my shoes, got Ed's camera (Our English friends Margaret & Ed are staying with us for 3 weeks - Ed is an extraordinary photographer and has a much better camera than I do!) and stepped out onto our deck which is barely 100 feet from The Lake. I quickly snapped a couple of photos. While I was standing there admiring this lovely sight I heard some splashing and thought that it must be my neighbor getting his boat out to do some early morning fishing. But the splashing sounds increased, it sounded like waves, which I knew it wasn't because The Lake was quite still, could it be someone swimming? Surely not, my curiosity got the better of me and I walked across the lawn and down to our pier. As I approached the water the splashing sound got louder and I could hear it coming from several places. Even in the near darkness I could see the water churning on both sides of the pier as well as in front of my neighbors properties. I stepped onto the pier and almost fell over as the silence, apart from the splashing, was torn apart by a crashing and banging sound from right under my feet. By now it was apparent to me that the churning and splashing sounds were fish. But the huge apparition that rose up from under my feet could not be a fish surely? No, it was a Great Blue Heron that must have been feeding under the pier and had been disturbed by my feet over his head. He struggled noisily out from under there with wings flapping against the decking, poles and water and as soon as he was clear, rose gracefully into the air with a few hoarse squawks and flew off. Meanwhile, the water all around me was churning with the sights and sounds of huge fish. They were so big that their backs were out of the water at times, they were bumping into the bulkhead and the pilings of the pier. I estimated them to be between 2 and 3 feet long although over by my neighbors beach the disturbance was so great that they could have been bigger, or maybe there were just more of them. After watching for a few minutes I went into the house, woke up my friend Ed, told him to get his shoes on and follow me. Together we watched fascinated for another 10 minutes until the mosquitoes discovered us and we decided to go back to bed. Instead of going to bed I brewed my first coffee of the day and wrote my blog to tell you about this new adventure from my lovely Lake.
Added later - Oh, by the way, they are Carp and vary in lenghth from one foot to four feet - there are hundreds of them! We have all been watching them thrashing aorund in two's, three's and yes, even foursomes!! They come right in to the edge, so close you could literally touch them, if they weren't so fast.
Enjoy life, I do, Love David.

Favorite cities.

How could I possibly have forgotten Copenhagen? And having mentioned Copenhagen - one of my very favorite cities because that is where I proposed to Julia - it follows that I should also mention Stockholm, what a lovely city that is, and of course Oslo, Helsinki, Vienna, Bratislava and almost any city in Switzerland. Returning to the US I have to mention San Antonio. Are there any more recommendations?

Drama on The Lake.

I awoke at 5.30 this morning to the sound of a mosquito buzzing around my head. Looking out the windows at The Lake I saw the most amazing sight - pink water! The entire lake was the most beautiful shade of pink. I got up and looked out at my most favorite view (Except for julia). Harry The Heron was stationed strategically by the pier searching the water for an early breakfast morsel. There, he got one. Suddenly, I saw and heard the most terrifying sight and sound on The lake - the male swan. He was running across the water, his neck stretched straight out in front of him and his huge 7 or 8 foot span wings smashing into the water on either side of him. He was in attack mode! And what was he attacking? Two Canada Geese that he apparently perceived as a threat to his future family and who were at least a quarter of a mile from his mate and their nest. He continued across the water closing the distance to the two Geese fast, when he got about 50 feet away from them the Geese took off and flew away. The swan stopped and settled onto the water, his work done, for the moment. Other "threats" would arise throughout the day and he would be ready to face them all. It is remarkable to me that the Geese, Ducks and other birds return after his scary behaviour. But return they do, only to be seen off again and again.

When a Man is Tired of London -

- a Man is Tired of Life. I think Samuel Johnson said that. He said a lot of great stuff, I'm going to have to read some more of him. What made me think of that? Well we have some English friends staying with us for a few weeks.
I really don't see how anyone could ever get tired of London, if you've never been there I would suggest a visit. A year would be a good start! Think I'm kidding? I'm not, a year there would only be a start.
I think London is the greatest city in the world. Now that may be because I know London better than any other city, having been there more times than any other city. (Not counting Baltimore - who is not even in the running - and that shows that it is not simply familiarity that makes a city great.) Thinking about it, I've been to quite a few cities around the world, some great and some not so great. Why don't I list some of my candidates for great cities of the world and then you list yours? After London would come Sydney, Australia, The City of Paris was nice - but when I think about that it makes me realize that the people also have to figure into the equation, and because of that Paris drops well down on the scale, Washington DC is OK but not what I would call great, New York definitely makes the cut, as do Bejing and Shanghai, I liked Vancouver and Ottawa too. There are a lot of small cities that fit, and there are a lot of cities that I have visited but not stayed long enough to form an opinion. I think generally big cities fit the old adage "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there". Using that adage, the only big cities that I can think of offhand that I don't think I'd mind living in are London, Sydney, Vancouver and possibly New York. I don't know any others well enough.
What is your take ? Do you have a list?
David.

There's still life left in the old man yet.

Yes I am still here, and feeling fine, right outside my windows nature paints a picture. And what a picture, there for me to feast my eyes on is the Bluest Lake you can imagine, under the Bluest sky.
In spite of having lived here for 10 months now we have not, until yesterday, bought a boat. It's a long story and one that I won't bore you with now, but it involves a builder who stole a considereable sum of money from us, bad timing with building the house - the economy that leaves us with no buyer for our previous house, even though we have cut it's price almost in half - and on and on - - - . But yesterday we finally broke down and bought not one, but two, bright yellow Kayaks, from Dicks, dear Dicks, they had a 50% off sale on some of their Kayaks, Wow, thats almost half price isn't it? Our friends Margaret and Edward are coming to visit us from England for 3 weeks and it just doesn't seem fair to have this beautiful Lake to explore and no boat to explore with! Dicks also had folding chairs at two for $12. As luck would have it one of our chairs broke yesterday, while watching the grandsons playing baseball (They won - again!), so we decided to invest in some chairs. No doubt Margaret & Ed will be coming to watch some top class American baseball - our grandsons are 8 and 9 years old - so we went all out and got two chairs for them to use and as we needed another one and one was $9.99 we decided to go for broke and get the two for $12.00! Now we are all set to sit.
I went out in one of the Kayaks this morning and it worked just fine, the first time that I have seen the house from so far out on the Lake, except this winter when the Lake froze over and we were able to not only walk all over the Lake but also build a fire on it! A nice big fire that did not burn through the ice. In fact a lot of people built fires, and rode their bikes, and skated, and played ice hockey.
Well it's time to prepare for our visitors, bye for now, or as we used to say in England - just practising for our visitors - "Ta ta for now."

David, XXX

Blue.

Blue. No, not Old Blue Eyes, although I am old and I do have blue eyes. (A beautiful young girl with beautiful brown eyes once told me that I had 'the most beautiful blue eyes') No, I am referring to Blue skies, Blue water, Blue birds and Blue flowers. I arrived home at 5 o'clock today and as usual went straight to the windows to look out at The Lake. And what did I see? I saw the most amazing Blue water reflecting the Bluest sky you ever could imagine and in the big green maple tree were no less than 5 BlueJays. I went outside, to enjoy it all the more and walked across, well not exactly a carpet, but through quite a lot of tiny Blue flowers. Blue is my favorite color - except when there are a lot of Yellow flowers! I was about to say that there are no yellow skies, yellow water and yellow birds, but I had no sooner thought it than I realized that there are indeed yellow birds. We see then flitting aorund here quite often, they are finches, the American Goldfinch to be precise. And a lot of birds have yellow legs too. Trees, well in the fall there are more yellow trees than you can count. That just leaves yellow water. Sounds gross doesn't it, reminds me of the old saying "Never eat yellow snow!" Hmm yellow water, got it, this morning I saw pink water, the pink morning sky was reflected in The Lake, so it follows that when we get a yellow sky reflected in The Lake I'll have my yellow water, and sure enough we had one of the most wonderful sunsets ever (Each one is more wonderful than the last, and when you get old you'll notice it more and more too. The older you get the more you realize the fewer of them there will be. So that helps to sharpen your senses and helps you notice them.) It was a golden sky and the water was a golden color, but I'll take it, gold is yellow right? Yellow gold. Golden yellow hair. Golden skin.
But I digress, as my Golden Girl tells me quite often. Maybe that is why I like Yellow, or Gold so much, because of My Golden Girl Julia, that is what I used to call her when she had golden hair, gold, suntanned skin and her favorite colors to wear were golds, yellows, tans, coppers, browns, all the colors of Fall. Or the Colors of Julia. Now I am Silver, but Julia is still My Gold.
Anyway, The Lake and everything around it was Blue today.
Let me just emphasize here that does not include my mood, which is good - whatever color that is!
Love and kisses to everyone today, Teach Tolerance. David XXX

Selfless behaviour.

- in the animal world. I would have pooh poohed this story if someone had told it to me, but I have just witnessed this selfless act with my own eyes, played out right before me, just yards away from where I sit and observe the Birds of The Lake.
First let me set up the scenario.
This beautiful, approximately 50 acre Lake, with it's miniature Bays and Inlets, an Outlet to The Chesapeake Bay and yes its very own Island, sits just 100 feet from our bedroom windows. The ten, floor to ceiling windows give an unparalleled view of The Lake and its inhabitants. My beautiful wife Julia and I spend many happy hours watching the Lake and it's denizens.
Two of those denizens are a pair of nesting Mute Swans, their nest, resembling a huge volcano of twigs, grasses, leaves, branches and other debris, sits magnificently on the Island, with the female positioned beautifully on her eggs. Meanwhile, the very aggressive Mr Swan patrols The Lake searching for dangers. These perils to his future issue, are apparently everywhere on The Lake, because he can be seen at almost any time pursuing such risky hazards as a pair of ducks, Bill the canoeist, Herb in his Kayak, a pair of Canada Geese with their own three Goslings to take care of and, not to my mind, but apparently to his mind, other Lake occupants that jeopardize his offspring.
Today it is raining, a nice soft much needed rain for the seeds that I have just planted, not good weather for working in the garden, but The Lake's water birds see no discomfit in it, in fact they revel in it. There are a plethora of birds out there today, from a very bedraggled looking Harry The Heron, to a trio of male Mallards (No doubt their mates are seated on their future offspring too) and four Canada Geese.
The drama that is taking place right now before our astonished eyes involves the Canada Geese. Our neighbors lawn slopes gently down to The Lakes edge, giving easy access to their grass by all the Birds of The Lake and enjoyed most often by the Canada Geese. There are two pairs of Geese on The Lake right now, one pair as I mentioned earlier has 3 delightful babies, the other pair are "childless", but the pair without babies seem to stay fairly close to the Geese with the babes. All seven geese - the four adults and the three Goslings - are on the lawn right now, the two groups separated by maybe 50 feet. They are all plodding around, poking their beaks into weeds and under logs and nibbling at the grass, the parents watching their progeny carefully and seemingly proudly. Suddenly, they start to honk, all heads are up and looking out at The Lake. Following their anxious gazes we see the male Swan approaching. The geese honk louder and get closer to the little balls of feathers who still don't sense any danger. The Swan moves relentlessly closer, I get my shoes ready in case I have to intervene on behalf of the helpless chicks. The Swan has reached the shoreline, I've never seen him come up onto the land to chase the Geese before and he doesn't this time either. Instead, he stands uncomfortably close, in the shallow water, alternately preening himself and eating the underwater weeds. When he moves closer to land the Geese become even more agitated and the childless pair take the initiative and move towards the Swan, putting themselves between the family and the Swan. Now this is no silly little gesture, because the Swan killed one of the Geese last year and one of this pair has a badly twisted leg that it hops about on, possibly the result of another run in with the attacking Swan. Suddenly one of the Geese goes into the water, not attacking the Swan - he wouldn't stand a chance - but seemingly to draw him away from the others. The Swan takes the bait and terrifyingly begins to chase the foolishly brave Goose. And it is terrifying, if I were smaller than the Swan I cannot imagine putting myself at the receiving end of his anger. And believe me, he is angry, the Goose swims away from the Swan as fast as he can, the Swan swims after him, the Goose swims faster, the Swan starts flapping his wings and running across the water. The six or seven foot wingspan of the Swan is scary even to me (I think I would run if he chased me!) but the sound of the wings and the huge feet crashing against the water, the loud grunting, and the long neck extended way out is dreadful indeed. Finally, with the Swan getting too close the Goose takes off, the Swan takes off too and continues the chase, but the Goose no doubt helped by his fear, gains on the Swan and eventually the Swan lands on the water, now well away from the baby geese. He does not head back that way, not for now anyway. In my mind this was an act of heroism in the animal world.

Enjoy your day, love, David XXX

To read more of my stories about The Lake, and other things, please go to my Blog at www.davidthesilverfox.blogspot.com

Puddles

Every path has a puddle. Into every life some rain must fall. But this is ridiculous, We're walking around in waders and rain gear all the time! And wearing a lifejacket. When will it end?

The Night Herons are back.

Yes the Night Herons that we saw on our pier yesterday were back this evening, two of them, Julia thinks it is a male and a female, but I'm not sure, it was getting dark so I couldn't see them very clearly. I hope to see them tomorrow before it gets too dark. I'll let you know.